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Full-Text Articles in Sociology
A Limited Engagement: Mexico And Its Diaspora, Roger D. Waldinger
A Limited Engagement: Mexico And Its Diaspora, Roger D. Waldinger
Roger D Waldinger
Responding to migrants’ many, ongoing involvements with their home communities, sending states have increasingly adopted policies of diaspora engagement, seeking both to retain the emigrants’ loyalties and shape their attachments so as best to meet home state leaders’ goals. This paper seeks to gain traction on the politics of diaspora engagement by studying two contrasting aspects of the Mexican experience – expatriate voting, a relatively new development, and provision of the matrícula consular, a long-standing component of traditional consular services, though one that has recently been transformed. Focusing on the complex set of interactions linking migrants, sending states, and receiving …
Homeland Calling? Political And Social Connectivity Across Borders, Roger D. Waldinger, Nelson Lim
Homeland Calling? Political And Social Connectivity Across Borders, Roger D. Waldinger, Nelson Lim
Roger D Waldinger
This paper seeks to understand the paradox of large-scale migrant connectivity with the significant others still at home, alongside far more limited engagement with the homeland polity left behind. We argue that, in the expatriate situation, homeland political involvement yields a decidedly unfavourable mix of costs and benefits for most migrants. On the one hand, the costs of expatriate political involvement are higher than the costs that would be entailed when “in country”; on the other hand, the home state can do much less for migrants than the state where they actually live. While the great majority of migrants consequently …
Making The Connection: Latino Immigrants And Their Cross-Border Ties, Roger D. Waldinger, Thomas Soehl
Making The Connection: Latino Immigrants And Their Cross-Border Ties, Roger D. Waldinger, Thomas Soehl
Roger D Waldinger
This paper uses the Pew Hispanic Center’s 2006 National Survey of Latinos to study the everyday, routine cross-border activities of travel, remittance sending, and telephone communication among Latin American immigrants in the United States. We ask how migrants vary in the intensity of their cross-border connections, distinguishing among the transmigrants, those captured by the host country national social field, and those who maintain some ongoing home-country tie. We then examine the characteristics associated both with variations in the intensity of connectedess and with each specific type of connection. We show that most migrants maintain some degree of home country connectedness, …
Making The Connection: Latino Immigrants And Their Cross-Border Ties, Roger D. Waldinger, Thomas Soehl
Making The Connection: Latino Immigrants And Their Cross-Border Ties, Roger D. Waldinger, Thomas Soehl
Roger D Waldinger
Whether involving ethnographic or survey research, recent research on immigrants’ home country connections has focused on the “transmigrants” -- immigrants who “live their lives across borders.” Doing so leaves out both the larger number who engage in some cross-border activity and those who fall out of the cross-border connection altogether. To broaden the scope of inquiry, this paper analyzes data from a nationally representative survey of Latino immigrants in the United States, designed to collect information on the cross-border activities of money-sending, communication, travel. We first analyze the determinants of each type of connection, and then the factors contributing to …
A Limited Engagement: Mexico And Its Diaspora, Roger D. Waldinger
A Limited Engagement: Mexico And Its Diaspora, Roger D. Waldinger
Roger D Waldinger
Given the many forms of migrants’ involvements with their home communities – not to speak of the resources that they mobilize – sending states have adopted policies of diaspora engagement, seeking to both retain the emigrants’ loyalties and shape their attachments so as best to meet home state leaders’ goals. This paper seeks to gain traction on the politics of diaspora engagement by studying by two contrasting aspects of the Mexican experience – expatriate voting, a relatively new development, and provision of the matricula consular, a long-standing component of traditional consular services, though one that has recently been transformed. Focusing …
Will The Followers Be Led? Where Union Members Stand On Immigration?, Roger Waldinger
Will The Followers Be Led? Where Union Members Stand On Immigration?, Roger Waldinger
Roger D Waldinger
Immigration is a source of cleavage on both sides of the usual ideological divides, as illustrated by its propensity to divide the American labor movement. This paper explores this question through a detailed analysis of a 2006 survey of national opinion, conducted by the Pew Centers, which provides the unusual opportunity to spotlight the opinions of union members. The results signal a warning light, as the views of union members turn out to be very different from those advanced by their leaders.
“The Bounded Community: Turning Foreigners Into Americans In 21st Century Los Angeles”, Roger D. Waldinger
“The Bounded Community: Turning Foreigners Into Americans In 21st Century Los Angeles”, Roger D. Waldinger
Roger D Waldinger
Contrary to the forecasts of the scholarship on immigrant transnationalism, foreigners continue to get transformed into nationals. Engaging in the necessary adjustments is often acceptable to the people earlier willing to abandon home in search of the good life; the everyday demands of fitting in, as well as the attenuation of home country loyalties and ties, make the foreigners and their descendants increasingly similar to the nationals whose community they have joined. But the ex-foreigners also respond to the message conveyed by nationals and state institutions, all of which signal that acceptance is contingent on demonstrating a commitment to belonging. …